The End of Doom

by Ronald Bailey

  Keep in mind that the death rate due to extreme weather between 2001 and 2010 averaged about 38,000 per year compared to about 59 million annual deaths for all causes. The Reason Foundation report concludes, “While extreme weather-related events, because of their episodic nature, garner plenty of attention worldwide, their contribution to the global mortality burden—0.07 percent of global deaths—is relatively minor.”

  What about economic losses? The IPCC’s 2014 Adaptation report observes, “Economic costs of extreme weather events have increased over the period 1960–2000, with insured losses increasing more rapidly than overall losses.” The report, however, goes on to note that “the greatest contributor to increased cost is rising exposure associated with population growth and growing value of assets.” Similarly, the 2014 Synthesis report notes that “increasing exposure of people and economic assets has been the major cause of long-term increases in economic losses from weather- and climate-related disasters.” To repeat: There is more damage because there are more people and more stuff to be harmed by storms, floods, wind, and drought.

  In order to see if climate change is adding to the destruction, researchers “normalize” losses by taking into account the number of people and the value of the property exposed to extreme weather events. For example, far more people live in Florida now than fifty years ago, with lots more houses and businesses, so hurricanes that strike there today are more likely to cause damage than those than hit that state, say, in the 1920s. Taking such increases in population and wealth into account, the IPCC Adaptation report contradicts the claims of Senator Boxer and Greenpeace. “Studies of normalized losses from extreme winds associated with hurricanes in the U.S. and the Caribbean, tornadoes in the U.S. and wind storms in Europe have failed to detect trends consistent with anthropogenic climate change,” notes the report.

  A January 2011 review article, “Have Disaster Losses Increased Due to Anthropogenic Climate Change?,” by Laurens Bouwer, which was published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (BAMS), surveyed twenty-two studies looking at trends in natural hazard losses. Bouwer, who was then a researcher at the Institute for Environmental Studies at Vrije University in the Netherlands, included studies that all looked at economic losses, covered at least thirty years of data, and were peer reviewed. The BAMS review found, “The studies show no trends in the losses, corrected for change (increases) in population and capital at risk, that could be attributed to anthropogenic climate change. Therefore, it can be concluded that anthropogenic climate change so far has not had a significant impact on losses from natural disasters.”

  Another 2010 study, “Normalizing Economic Loss from Natural Disasters: Global Analysis,” by Eric Neumayer and Fabian Barthel, two researchers associated with the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science, also probed trends in weather disaster loss data in search of a global warming signal. Besides using conventional techniques that take into account increases in population and wealth to normalize losses, they also develop an alternative technique that looks at relative losses over time. Briefly, their new measure looks at how much actual loss occurred relative to the amount that was at risk. For example, what percentage of wealth in Miami was destroyed by hurricanes in 1920 versus 2010? If the actual-to-potential-loss ratio is increasing over time, this suggests that the weather is having a growing impact.

  Analyzing weather disasters between 1980 and 2009, Neumayer and Barthel find, “Both methods lead to the same result for all disasters: no significant trend over time according to the conventional method, a marginally significant downward trend according to the alternative method.” Applying both normalization methods, they find no significant trends in weather related losses for both developed and developing countries. Looking regionally at North America, Western Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, and South and East Asia also uncovers no statistically significant trend in losses caused by weather disasters. In addition, two 2009 studies found no upward trend in normalized losses dues to windstorms or floods in Western Europe since 1970. One concluded, “Results show no detectable sign of human-induced climate change in normalised flood losses in Europe.”

  Neumayer and Barthel, using their alternative normalization method, do identify a “strongly negative trend” in normalized weather disaster damages in developed countries. Translation: The amount of damage caused by severe weather is declining in relative terms. They speculate, “This could possibly indicate a stronger capability of richer nations to fund defensive mitigating measures, which decrease vulnerability to natural disasters over time.” Richer societies are likely reducing their weather losses by establishing better early warning systems, enacting stronger building codes, and constructing firmer levees. People may be protecting themselves ever better against the consequences of storms and floods, even though the weather is getting worse.

  A review of the relevant weather damage studies, according to the IPCC Adaptation report, concluded, “A majority of studies have found no detectable trend in normalized losses.” Given that the data it reviewed showed no significant evidence for current damages attributable to climate change, it is odd that the 2014 Adaptation report did nevertheless feebly conclude that “climate change cannot be excluded as at least one of the drivers involved in changes of normalized losses over time in some regions and for some hazards.”

  It is generally agreed that the average temperatures over land have increased by about 0.7°C since the 1950s. Looking toward the end of the twenty-first century, the 2012 SREX report relies on computer model projections, which suggest that one-in-twenty-year hottest day events are to become one-in-two-year events. The report also projects that inundations that once happened every twenty years are likely to occur every five years.

  Sounds bad, but that’s nearly a hundred years from now. With regard to the next few decades, the SREX researchers more sanguinely report: “Projected changes in climate extremes under different emissions scenarios generally do not strongly diverge in the coming two to three decades, but these signals are relatively small compared to natural climate variability over this time frame. Even the sign of projected changes in some climate extremes over this time frame is uncertain.” That means that weather extremes for the next several decades will likely be within the bounds of natural variation, making it almost impossible to discern any effect of man-made climate change on them. In other words, whatever weather disasters do occur will not be on a scale or frequency beyond those that humanity has experienced in recent decades.

  Although no upward trend in weather damages can be found in developing countries, the UN’s SREX report does note that fatality rates and economic losses as a proportion of GDP from weather disasters are higher in poor countries. In fact, between 1970 and 2008, 95 percent of deaths from natural disasters occurred in developing countries. Bad weather produces death and destruction largely when it encounters poverty.

  This insight prompts two observations: First, recent research indicates that man-made climate change has not been nor is it likely to be a big contributor to losses stemming from weather disasters in the next few decades. Second, boosting the wealth of poor people through economic growth is their best protection against meteorological disasters in the long run, whether fueled by future man-made climate change or not.

  The Abject Failure of UN Climate Change Negotiations

  One thing is for sure, the current international negotiating process under the auspices of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has been a near complete failure. The original goal of this creaky process set in motion back at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro was to cut the greenhouse gas emissions of rich developed countries by 2012 to about 5 percent below the levels they emitted in 1990. A cap-and-trade mechanism was eventually devised under the Kyoto Protocol in 1997 and came into effect in 2005. The general idea was that all of the rich countries would set a cap on how much c
arbon dioxide could be emitted and issue permits for amounts under that cap. The permits would be tradable so that companies able to more cheaply cut their emissions could sell their excess permits to companies where reductions would be more costly. The cap would decline over time, and this carbon market would set a price on each ton of carbon dioxide. Setting a price on carbon dioxide was supposed to encourage the development of innovative low-carbon energy technologies that would replace fossil fuels as the main source of power.

  It hasn’t worked out that way. First, the United States, then the largest emitter of carbon dioxide, refused to adopt the Kyoto Protocol. In fact, the US Senate passed a resolution in 1997 by a vote of 95 to 0 that it was not the sense of the Senate that the United States should sign the Kyoto Protocol. The treaty was never submitted to the Senate for ratification. Some signatories, including Canada and Japan, ignored their Kyoto Protocol obligations and burned even more fossil fuels. In 2012, Canada, Japan, and Russia refused to make any further commitments under the Kyoto Protocol. Only the European Union actually established a cap-and-trade carbon market that has suffered periodic price collapses.

  Nevertheless, the UNFCCC process is supposed to yield a new treaty at its 2015 meeting in Paris that obligates countries to begin controlling their greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. The IPCC’s 2014 Mitigation report estimates that to have a good chance of keeping the global average temperature from rising above 2°C, global greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 must be between 40 and 70 percent lower than they were in 2010. Greenhouse gas emissions will have to be entirely eliminated by 2100.

  So where do we stand now with respect to future warming? Since the failure of the UNFCCC climate change negotiations to adopt a binding treaty at the Copenhagen conference in 2009, many countries have made a variety of nonbinding “pledges” to cut back on their greenhouse gas emissions. For example, the United States under the Obama administration has promised to reduce emissions to below 17 percent of their 2005 levels by 2020. In November 2014, President Obama further pledged to reduce US emissions by 26 to 28 percent by 2025. Adding all of these pledges up, IPCC’s 2014 Mitigation report suggests that they are “broadly consistent” with scenarios that would “keep temperature change below 3°C relative to preindustrial levels.”

  A Great Leap Forward on Climate Change?

  At the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in November 2014, US president Barack Obama and Chinese president Xi Jinping issued a “joint announcement on climate change” in which each country made pledges about how they intend to handle future emissions of their greenhouse gases. The announcement was hailed by most environmental groups and much of the media as “historic,” a “breakthrough,” and a “game changer.” Careful parsing of the text’s diplomatic jargon suggests that the joint announcement is in fact likely to be none of those.

  To understand the nebulous nature of the announcement, don’t focus first on the promised trajectories of future greenhouse gas emissions by both countries. Instead consider the loopholes. For example, this bit of climate change diplomatic arcana in which the two countries promise to work together “to adopt a protocol, another legal instrument or an agreed outcome with legal force under the Convention applicable to all Parties at the United Nations Climate Conference in Paris in 2015.”

  That convoluted phraseology was hammered out at as a compromise at the 2011 Durban climate conference. The European Union was then strongly insisting that the UN climate conferees commit to “a protocol or other legal instrument” as the ultimate goal for a comprehensive global treaty in 2015. Why? Because that exact language had earlier propelled the agreement to the Kyoto Protocol, which established the only legally binding emissions reduction targets on any countries.

  China and India, however, objected and sought to water down the language by including “or an agreed outcome with legal force.” The Chinese and Indians evidently believe that that phraseology suggests whatever climate negotiations do achieve by 2015, the result will be that they still will have fewer obligations to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions than will rich developing countries.

  But what about the phrase “applicable to all Parties”? At Durban, the United States insisted that in any future climate agreement, “legal parity” must apply to big emerging economies like China, India, and Brazil. That means that they would be bound to cut their emissions in the same way that industrialized countries are. If China, India, and Brazil will not accept legally binding targets, then neither would the United States.

  The joint announcement, most likely at the insistence of China, also reaffirmed “the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, in light of different national circumstances” enshrined in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. China has consistently interpreted that principle as meaning that countries that were rich and developed in 1992 when the convention was adopted are obligated to cut their emissions, while countries that were then poor are not.

  What about the actual emissions pledges? The joint announcement states that the United States intends to achieve an economy-wide target of reducing its emissions by 26 to 28 percent below its 2005 level in 2025 and to make best efforts to reduce its emissions by 28 percent. Additionally, China intends to achieve the peaking of CO2 emissions around 2030 and to make best efforts to peak early and intends to increase the share of nonfossil fuels in primary energy consumption to around 20 percent by 2030. The crucial word here is “intends.” It is clear that the announcement is not meant to create any new obligations.

  While China declared that its carbon dioxide emissions (not greenhouse gases) will peak by 2030, the announcement said nothing about the level at which they will peak. So at what level might China’s emissions peak? Assuming the recent 3 percent annual increase in China’s carbon dioxide emissions continues for the next sixteen years, they would reach 16 gigatonnes by 2030.

  In 2005, the United States emitted the equivalent of 7.26 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide. So cutting emissions by 28 percent by 2025 implies emissions of 5.23 gigatonnes in 2025, which is about the amount that the United States emitted in 1992. Assuming that Chinese emissions did peak in 2030, the country could by then be emitting three times more than the United States.

  Looking at the previously announced energy and climate policies of both the United States and China, the new pledges appear to add little to their existing plans to reduce their emissions. The new Obama pledges basically track the reductions that would result from the administration’s plan to boost automobile fuel economy standards to 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025 and the Environmental Protection Agency’s new scheme to cut by 2030 the carbon dioxide emissions from electric power plants by 30 percent below their 2005 level. Xi was no doubt aware that a week earlier an analysis of demographic, urbanization, and industrial trends by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences had predicted that China’s emissions peak would occur between 2025 and 2040.

  Ultimately, there is a critical mismatch between the two countries’ pledges. The United States undertakes to make actual cuts in its emissions over the next decade while China promises that it will do so beginning in sixteen years. Supporters hope that the joint announcement is the prelude to a “great leap forward” to a broad and binding global climate change agreement at Paris in 2015. Perhaps, but the United States and China left themselves plenty of room to step back if their pledges become inconvenient.

  The Rocky Road to the Paris Climate Talks

  At the December 2015 UN climate change conference in Paris, the nations of the world are supposed to adopt some kind of legally binding agreement to comprehensively address the problem of man-made climate change. That goal may be out of reach. Why? Because the interests of the rich and poor countries just don’t converge on how to handle climate change, as the latest UN conference in Lima, Peru, made very clear in December 2014. Poor countries are demanding hundreds of billions in climate aid upfront before they agree to give up cheap fossil fuels. A
nd rich countries won’t hand over the cash unless poor countries first make credible commitments to cut their greenhouse gas emissions.

  In early 2015, each nation is supposed to register publicly its voluntary intended nationally determined contributions (INDCs) to how it plans to address climate change. Attached to the Lima Call for Climate Action is a preliminary draft document outlining various options for a Paris agreement. This is a Chinese menu of provisions that highlights just how much discord there is over global climate policy. For example, the draft offers several options with regard to setting a firm goal for greenhouse gas emissions cuts. Countries might agree to cut emissions to 40 to 70 percent below their 2010 levels by 2050; or cut them by 50 percent below their 1990s levels with a continued decline thereafter; or go for full decarbonization by 2050. Or rich countries could agree that their emissions will peak in 2015 and then aim for zero net emissions by 2050.

  The section on the financial resources to be provided to poor countries to help them to adapt to climate change and to pay for losses stemming from climate change suggests an annual floor of $100 billion in aid from rich countries; or, alternately, the agreement might not specify any amount of climate aid at all. Under the proposed provisions dealing with sources of finance, one option states that climate aid should primarily come from the government budgets of the rich countries. In a second option, private funds would play a greater role. Also undecided is whether countries will have the right to assess and challenge data issued by other countries with regard to their treaty commitments. The climate negotiators in Paris will also need to figure out whether the parties will have to update their INDCs every five years or every ten years.